This past Thursday Gene Beaumont and myself had a really good meeting with the Monroe County Parks. I'm going to break the meeting down into four main topics.

1. Worlds feedback - as everyone knows it was a huge success. Monroe County was extremely pleased with our work at both Ellison and Churchville and they look forward to continued work with our club. We also hope to only improve upon our relationship. Increasing communication between our organizations to promote our sport even further.

2. Ellison Park - They are extremely pleased with how the fly pads turned out. We have evaluated how they presently look and have asked for additional materials (stone and top soil). The county will be dropping this off for us. As soon as it is there we will arrange a work day to smooth out the pads. This will include adding additional stone under the pads where needed and re-tamping where needed. We will use the topsoil to back fill up to the pads making the transition onto the pad a lot better. We also discussed trying to figure out a good vandal prof sign option to get that re-established for all of the holes.

3. Churchville Park - The meeting mainly focused on this. To let everyone know at the conclusion of the worlds, the baskets and tee locations were all to stay as is until further discussions could be had. This never happened, baskets were reinstalled to their old locations that the county never officially agreed upon. So now we are left sorting through this and going through the appropriated processes with the County. Unfortunately due to potential liability we will be unable to keep the 4 holes on the west side of the road (1,2,17,18). The issue is crossing a main road. The County did look into adding a crosswalk, but it was too close to an intersection and were turned down. They have had really good feedback though in regards to our layout for the worlds. They know our club represents close to 100 disc golfers of all skill levels and they are very responsive to our ideas. There are plans for a future evaluation and potentially adding a few woods holes once clearly defining the property line. We will be doing a walk through with them in the near future. Our goal is to optimize that course for everyone's use. We have asked to have hole 16 from the worlds layout put back as hole 18 for now and they agree. This should hopefully be completed soon. Again I will continue to keep everyone abreast of the situation and look for feedback as we move forward.

4. New course potential - for those that don't know we have 18 baskets and fly pads (from GVP) that we were able to secure thanks to an awesome 2011 Am Worlds. We are aggressively seeking out an area on the east side of the county. While Powdermill Park remains top to our list, we are not opposed to looking elsewhere if needed. There are several parks that are presently undergoing new master plans that a disc golf course may be a great addition. Again as we move forward I will let everyone know what is happening.

I don't think we really need any more west-side courses. Well, I guess that's not really true, as any new course would be welcome, but the balance between # of courses west of the city vs east of the city is lop-sided as it is.

im looking into it. great attraction for Out of towners with kids. Ive got several layouts there with the reds at a 54...whites at 60 and golds at 70. If you have played any NC courses then you know what I have in mind

There has been a constant pleading for more courses on the East Side, namely Powdermill Park, for as long as I've heard of disc golf. The course is laid out, you have baskets. The club is more than willing to do the work. Somebody get the parks dept to OK this. The elevation and wooded terrain would make a fantastic addition to Rochester's arsenal of courses. I know there's red tape, but how has this course not been approved yet? You just had the Monroe County "Sports Event of the Year".... Make it happen, guys!

chiefstang wrote:There has been a constant pleading for more courses on the East Side, namely Powdermill Park, for as long as I've heard of disc golf. The course is laid out, you have baskets. The club is more than willing to do the work. Somebody get the parks dept to OK this. The elevation and wooded terrain would make a fantastic addition to Rochester's arsenal of courses. I know there's red tape, but how has this course not been approved yet? You just had the Monroe County "Sports Event of the Year".... Make it happen, guys!

I doubt it will ever happen because if you look at the course design it goes right through all of the most used areas of the park. I find it extremely hard to believe they would ever give up those portions of the park for a disc golf course. There are other areas in the park that you could fit one in which aren't used anywhere near as much but as far as I'm aware nobody has attempted to design a more reasonable course with a chance of getting approved.

Has anyone looked at Webster? The town has a park they just recently acquired 40+ acres of land from a gentlemen that passed away. It is strictly farm land and is off of Maple Road, it is currently known as Finn Park. Jane Latsky (a women that works with the Webster town), is aware and supportive of disc golf and should be the person to go through to try and get anything secured or even considered. Just a little FYI...

Just wanted to chime in and say.....What about Highland park? it would be great for us City folk to have a course near home. I know there was a temp course there at one point way back. Just a thought. There is a bunch or space back behind Highland bowl that is just wasting away. Mostly used by creepy people parking their cars. I just did a real quick satelite view of the area and threw in some holes as an idea. There is a lot of elevation change over there and some really beautiful well maintained landscape.

Last I had heard about Powder Mill when I brought it up earlier this month, was there has been a huge communication disconnect with the County (on their side). It's been painful enough to get them to talk about current courses (Chruchville) let alone projected ones apparently.

To be honest --- our focus at this very moment is wrapping up the big event we just hosted and finishing MCC and the tee pads. There is no update from the County at this time regarding Churchville or Powdermill.

Meaning the sooner we get MCC done, the sooner we can focus on obtaining a new course!!! Sounds like a great incentive to come out this Saturday to pour concrete at MCC! Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Durand Eastman was offered to the GRDGC at one time, with no parking or bathrooms, wasn't really viable. The site was next to the golf course, you would have to park on the side of the road and walk down and up a ways to get to course. - #304

Durand Eastman would be amazing. I wouldn't care if you had to park far from the course. I used to walk my dog at Durand all the time and the landscape would be an amazing disc golf course if they let us use the right areas. I brought my portable basket there once and made a small course by just moving the basket. There are so many perfect fairways that wouldn't need any work at all. There's wooded holes, tight fairway ones, up and down hills, over fields with big bush's, Durand has everything.

Durand has a cool landscape but there are several reasons why it won't work. I grew up down the road from Durand and the park is just too overpopulated. Between ball golfers, hikers, mountain bikers, and dog walkers it is way too busy there. Worst is during the summer when Durand becomes ghetto beach.

Yeah it is a very busy park during the summer. The area of Durand I am thinking of isn't near the beach at all and is away from the golf course. I've gone walking at Durand at least 100 times and have never seen anyone on a mountain bike. There are a lot of dog walkers, but just like Basil which has a decent amount of dog walkers and mountain bikers on hole 13 and 14 you just wait for them to get out of the way. If Durand was available at one time I think it should be considered again as a possibility. the makeshift holes I set up with my basket were some of the best holes I have ever seen, and all I had to do was set the basket up and the fairways, hills, and perfect wooded holes were already naturally there. It was a lot like the Webster park temp course but more scenic.

I know Mendon Ponds park isn't necessarily east side, but that might have potential too.

I assumed it would be tough to make things happen at Durand, but the part of Durand I was also thinking about was not around the golf course. I was thinking the west side of Kings highway, and having the turn be up towards the end of Oakview Dr (which initially came into mind when thinking of Durand). The area around the end of Oakview Dr. would be great.